Re: PITR as Online Backup Solution

On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 10:23:57AM -0000, Andy Shellam wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> I've been trying to get a similar system up and running, and I have to say
> one point in the documentation isn't particularly clear.
>
> It says that you can string together an almost endless supply of WAL logs to
> replay against a database, however you must always start from a base backup
> - ie. You cannot do a recovery on your standby, add a log from your live,
> then re-do the recovery again. You would have to restore your base backup,
> then replay all the logs to include the new one.
>
> A guy called Simon Riggs came up with an idea of having a base backup, then
> creating a script to be called in your recovery_command that reads the WAL
> logs in, but if it cannot find one it needs, it sits and waits and retries
> every so often - every time it finds a new log, that is passed back to the
> PG recovery. Then you would have to find a method of telling the script
> that you wish to bring the database up and it will exit and allow PGSQL to
> come up at the current state with the latest data.
>
> This is a script I am looking to develop myself in the coming months, as I
> would also like a very similar situation to yourself.

Take a look at http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpitrha/. It's empty right
now because it was just approved, but Jeff Frost should be adding some
code he currently has sometime this weekend. I'll also be working on
this, hopefully improving on some stuff next week.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461